Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Can anyone comment on the accuracy of a story

From Anonymous:

Can anyone comment on the accuracy of a story about how Nanos stormed down to a LANL employee's office and berated the employee while Nanos was still a DAD working for Cobb? In the story that I heard, the employee was his neighbor, with whom he was actively engaged in a legal dispute, at the time. If true, seems like an abuse of power to me.

The story is true, except for the part about "storming down to my office".

A few weeks before Mr. Nanos was named acting director, I saw Mr. Nanos walking in front of my office, at that time near the elevator in the Ad bldg. I asked Mr. Nanos if he had received some documents related to the land I sold him adjacent mine, a part of which he was legally obligated to return to me. Prior to this time my relationship with Mr. Nanos had been entirely cordial, and I was quite surprised by Mr. Nanos's agressive response to my innocent question. During this "conversation", Mr. Nanos threatened to retaliate against me if I took action to protect my interests in the property. This threat was witnessed, and a signed affidavit of the witness is available.

After determining Mr. Nanos's concerns, I offered a win-win solution to Mr. Nanos. His response was to reject it out of hand, forcing me to sue him to protect my interests in the property. This was filed in open court and so is a matter of public record, First Judicial District Court Case No D-0132-CV-200300016. As Mr. Nanos had threatened to retaliate against me, the court provided me with a restraining order to prevent Mr. Nanos from harming my interest in the property while the case was decided - again, filed in open court. Eventually Mr. Nanos agreed to a stipultated judgement giving me everything I asked for in the lawsuit, plus $500 for my attorney's fees. The stipulated judgement, filed in open court, did not include the standard line stating neither party could discuss the case as I believed at that time, as I do now, that the facts related to Mr. Nanos's behavior should be known.

On the advice of the Albuqueque DOE Employee Concerns Office, I have filed copies of all documents related to this incident and the related lawsuit with them and with S-6, since an established pattern of behavior of threats and abusive behavior is taken into account when determining Q-clearance suitability, and can be grounds for revoking a Q-clearance.

I also made the regents of UC aware of the case, although their response was simply to state that they believe handling the case through the courts was the correct way to resolve the issue.

I urge any of you who have similarly experienced threatening behavior of a LANL manager to document the incident and file it with S-6. While I fully inderstand the worries about retaliation expressed in this blog - especially as Mr. Nanos has specifically threatened to retaliate against me - without documentation it is hard to establish the needed accountability to correct a problem.

PS: The 26 Mar. 2003 LA Monitor had the article below at the bottom of thefront page. This was orginally athttp://www.lamonitor.com/lamonitor/myarticles.asp?P=448679&S=491&PubID=8520&EC=0but I believe their electronic copy of this was later lost in a computer mishap (and I apologize to them if my electronic reconstruction of the article has any errors). Like all such articles, it has a few inaccuracies caused by the reporter not having first-hand knowledge of the incidents, but gets the basics right and should help clarify the issues in the lawsuit, which at that time was still in progress.

Temporary injunction won by GammelBy GEORGE SCHWARZlareporter@lamonitor.comMonitor Staff Writer

Western Area resident J. Tinka Gammel has won a temporary injunction barring Los Alamos National Laboratory Interim Director George "Pete" Nanos from using a strip of land between their two properties for a utilities easement, according to District Court records.

The lawsuit, which also names Los Alamos County as a defendant, is headed for court and the attorneys for the two private parties won’t talk about it. "When it’s in court, I can’t comment on it," said Oliver Miles, Nanos’ attorney. Jack Hardwick, Gammel’s lawyer didn’t return calls.

Court records show that on Nov. 14, 2002, Gammel, who is also a Los Alamos National Laboratory employee, sold a lot to Nanos for $219,000. With the sale, there was an agreement to adjust the lot line between their two properties, but until the lines were finalized, theNanoses granted Gammel an access easement to what court documents call "the strip."

Court documents state that on Dec. 10, Gammel showed Nanos a preliminary plat reflecting lot line adjustments and, three days later, she asked Nanos if he had reviewed the plan. "George Peter Nanos became very angry with Gammel and told her, without explaining that he ‘had decided to do it another way,’ and threatened that Gammel had better not interfere ‘or she would never get the property [the strip] back," according to the court filing.

Several days later, Nanos granted a 10-foot wide utilities easement to the county and Gammel, after learning about the easement, requested that Nanos and the county vacate the easement. Neither has done so, the filing states. Gammel’s filing calls Nanos’ actions a "constructive fraud" by unfairly exploiting owning the strip and that Nanos and Los Alamos County "will be unjustly enriched" if the easement isn’t rescinded.

Further, Gammel "is reasonably concerned, based upon the surreptitious conduct of George Peter Nanos, that (he) will authorize or direct the trenching for utilities and construction of an underground electrical line within the easement without the consent of Gammel." Gammel’s suit contends that the strip has vegetation of "unique value" to her and that Nanos has other ways to get electricity to his property.

In the court documents, neither Nanos nor the county would guarantee not to do work in the easement, with Gammel’s lawyer stating that Assistant County Attorney Dan Gonzales called Gammel’s suit "frivolous." There are no filings from Nanos’ attorney or Los Alamos County in the court file.

Assistant County Attorney Dan Gonzales said the county is trying to facilitate another easement that would give Nanos access to utilities and would be happy to vacate the easement back to Gammel. "Gammel has sued Nanos and the county and the county is really a nominal defendant," he said. "We were named as a defendant because Nanos granted this easement to us."